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The TV Shoot, The Spoiled Brat, And A Painful Lesson

It was two days before our shoot. I was in the office with the
client going over the story boards and filling him in on all the
details for his latest television campaign. At that time, with my
agency being in its infancy stage, we were taking in any client
we could, which is why I was seated across from the "Redneck
Crazy Man" as I liked to refer to him. He owned a string of low
end rental car shops and his only redeeming quality was that he
was a quick pay.

For this particular shoot, my script involved an NBA star and
a good looking young boy I had cast through a local talent
agency. The boy had been in a few commercials and he knew how to
take direction which is crucial when it comes to working with
children.

As I was going over the script, the client stopped me
mid-sentence, put a picture of a boy in front of me and said,
"What ya think about this kid?" Not sure what he had up his
sleeve this time, I looked at the picture of the 10 year old boy.
"He's cute, why?" I asked. "Cause he's gonna be in the
commercials." He said deadpan. "But I've already cast a boy
through the talent agency who's perfect! He's coming in tomorrow
to do the radio spot and he's contracted to do the TV shoot the
following day." I replied. "Don't care". He said. "This here boy
is my grandson and if he isn't in the commercials there ain't
going to be any commercials." I looked at the picture again and
looked back at my redneck crazy man client and shrugged. How bad
could he be? I was about to find out.

The next day at our recording studio the "cute" grandson I'll
call Jake in this article to protect all concerned, came in with
his mother to do the radio commercials I had originally scheduled
with the professional child actor. I gave Jake the script and
because he had never been near a microphone, I began to coach him
as to how close he should get to it, how to be careful about
pronunciation, etc. "Let's try a few lines" I said, and that's
when the fun began.

Jake I quickly learned, had speech problems. The client's name
had a couple of "R"s in it and Jake pronounced "R"s like "L"s
making the name of his granddad's car rental company sound like a
Lithuanian side dish. In addition, he would put a "th" on all
words containing an "S". No matter how many takes he did, the
copy came out sounding like a foreign language. Jake grew
restless and complained to his mom that he was bored and wanted
to go home. And after a couple of hours of futility I ended up
salvaging what I could and hoped the listeners were
bilingual.

The following day Jake showed up (late) with his mom for the
television shoot. Our crew had already been there several hours
setting up for our first scene while the NBA star was in makeup.
Jake looking bored, grabbed a basketball and started bouncing it
on the court right next to one of the sound engineer's high end
reel to reel tape machines. "Be careful bouncing that ball so
close to that machine." I told him. "That is a very expensive
piece of equipment." "Who cares?" He replied deadpan. "If it
breaks, my grandfather will pay for it." That's when I knew we
were in for a long day.

As I tried to get him to focus on the lines he was to deliver
(in that special foreign language of his) his eyes went right to
the craft services. "Donuts!" he cried as he dropped the ball
right on the tape machine and began stuffing his face. I had
rewritten most of the lines trying carefully to edit out any "R"
words but the name of the company couldn't be avoided. When he
was not causing mischief or complaining to his mom that he was
bored, Jake was hungry or he was tired, sprawling around on the
basketball court while I tried diplomatically to get him back in
front of the camera. At one point I found him trying to flirt
with some of the female crew telling them that when his
grandfather "kicked" this would all be his. As I steered him into
makeup, the makeup artist said, "My, what cute little boy!" "I'll
get back to you at the end of the day to see if you have
reassessed that opinion" I whispered to her.

The grandson was not only confrontational and rude to the crew
but also to the NBA star as well who looked like he wanted to
crush the little runt a few times. The rest of the shoot went as
smoothly and after about 10 hours of work, I prayed we had enough
film to choose from to finish the :30 second spot.

The makeup artist came up to me later in the day and when I
asked her if she still considered the boy cute, I seem to
remember her response including the word "strangulation".

What was the lesson in all this? Well despite what you have
heard, the client isn't always right. In fact, sometimes the
client is dead wrong. It all depends on your relationship and
chemistry as to how you handle a difficult situation such as
this. Don't be afraid to assert yourself in showing the client
what's best for his advertising and marketing plan for it will
benefit both of you in the long run. Just as he is an expert in
his business, so too are you in yours. And if you are ever in a
situation such as the one I've just described, the "grin and bare
it" approach may be your only option!

Hal Eisenberg is an award winning copywriter, voice over
talent and producer, as well as owner of The Eisenberg Agency, a
full service advertising agency specializing in creative ads that
get results.

SACRAMENTO (CBS/AP) – Lawmakers have approved a bill allowing athletes at California colleges to take money from advertisers, in defiance of NCAA rules.

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